Rosicrucians probably began their movement in the Protestant reformation in 15th-16 century Europe. One early Rosicrucian symbol consisted of a cross in front of Rose, androgynous in that the cross was Christ and the Rose Mary. It represents "blooming and burning" at the same time. Some documents trace the cult even further back than the 15th century to the life of Christian Rosenkreutz, a spiritual seeker, wanderer, student of Caballah and other traditions. Rosenkreutz first established a sect dealing with the healing arts. His core belief was in the transmutation of the body into an enlightened spiritual presence, which he saw as a state of perfection. Rosicrucians relied on the metaphor of alchemy for the idea of this transformation although they weren't acually alchemists. Alchemy itself, the belief in the ability to fuse base metal with some other substance to create gold, has been closely related to the idea of androgyny, the unification of man and woman in the same being, throughout history. The image at left shows the allegory of the rebirth of the enlightened soul in its androgynous state.
Rosicrucians
